During the 2017-2018 academic year, 5 practicing artists mentor 15- 25 student artists to develop their artistic voices. The young artists chose to address the challenges in articulating perplexed thoughts, feelings, and emotions into individual works of art. These various experiences of being a teen are “The Whole” subject of this exhibition presented through paintings, drawings, photographs, and video work made by the students both collaboratively and independently. Visitors are invited by teens to ask themselves “ya dig?” or Do you get what we are trying to say? Both what teens feel able to express, and what they cannot fully articulate in words are presented in the artworks in this exhibition.
Complex topics such as gentrification, justice, healing and meditation were discussed during the course of the teen programs. These issues with lasting impacts on teen’s lives motivated some of the work presented. Other works address more intimate, personal struggles such as self-representation, and internal complexities. The artworks shown convey themes that students have been grappling with, some of which have been resolved and some which have not. In summation the exhibition is the accumulation of the complicated experience of being a teen.
